?"

"I know not, good Fairy, but I mean not to sleep to-night at Mistress
Cory Ann's."

"Hast any other home?"

"No, good Fairy, but mayhap I will find one."

"Have you any fixed idea about it?"

"N-o; I have only in my mind that of which I cannot yet speak."

"Very well, then be brave and do not falter. You have long felt ill at
ease with the Tory woman; tell not too much, but speak the truth
boldly."

"I mean to," said Maid Sally.

After the French lesson was over, Sally lingered in the parson's
library.

"I gave thee the next reading, did I not?" asked Parson Kendall.

"Yes, I know about the lesson, sir," replied Sally, "but I know not
where I had better go. I have no home."

"No home?" repeated the parson, "how is that? Hath the woman Mistress
Brace cast thee out?"

Sally turned pale, so great was her fright and her desire to cry. But a
single word from her Fairy helped her:

"Courage!"

"I refused to buy tea at the apothecary man's," she said, "and Mistress
Brace called me a beggar, and bade me go and not return. I cannot be
called a beggar, nor can I go back, when I have been told to stay away."

Parson Kendall toyed with his watch-fob, looked at the braided mat on
which he stood, and seemed studying the pattern of the border. After
what seemed a long time to Sally, he said:

"Sit thee down for a moment, poor maid. I would speak with Goodwife
Kendall for a space. Be not timorous, all may yet be well with thee."

Sally sank into a chair as the parson disappeared.

"I've done it!" she said to her Fairy.

"Yes, and without many words," answered her Fairy. "That is always the
best way to do that to which one has made up the mind."

Then Sally fell a-thinking. But so quickly beat her heart that she could
scarcely sit still. And it beat all the faster when the door opened and
Goodwife Kendall, in a rustling black silk, with soft muslin collar and
cuffs, and a lace cap upon her head, stood before her.

"I hear you have not so good a home, little maid," she said, in a fine,
low voice, "as would beseem thee, and the minister has no mind to send
thee back to it. So here is a plan. My two servants are faithful at
their tasks, but there is much needlework that is needful to be done. My
two sisters are to tarry with me for the present, and much visiting must
be enjoyed.

"There are certain duties to be attended to in the minister's family,
and in his library, which it is not befitting that servants